The people of Yemen overwhelmingly consider themselves Arabs, but they have tended to divide themselves between northern and southern groups, a historical division that has linguistic roots but which is otherwise difficult to trace. Yemenis of northern origin, for example, are said to have descended from Mesopotamians who entered the region in the 1st millennium BCBCE, and they claim ancestry of the biblical figure Ismāʿīl (Ishmael). The southern group, which represents the old South Arabian stock, claims descent from Qaḥṭān, the biblical Joktan.

Ethnic minorities include the Mahra, a people whose roots are unclear and who occupy a part of eastern Yemen, as well as the island of Socotra, and who speak a variant of the ancient Himyaritic language. (See Mahra Sultanate.) On the Tihāmah coastal plain, in-migrations from Ethiopia and Somalia have occurred over many centuries. There is a clear African admixture in the coastal population as well as a distinct social group known as the Akhdām, who perform menial tasks and are the closest thing to a caste in Yemen. In the far north there are still small remnants of the once-large Jewish communities (most migrated to Israel after 1948), while in the area of Aden and the eastern regions there are distinct Somali, Indonesian, and Indian elements in the population, legacies of the British colonial era as well of economic and political ties extending back over two millennia.

Among Arab groups, tribal affiliation is another deep-seated component of social identity. Some tribal confederations of tribes have histories spanning more than two millennia. These affiliations continue to serve as a key basis for political and social organization throughout the country, although the postindependence governments of both South Yemen and, to a lesser extent, North Yemen set out to eradicate what then were considered reactionary cultural institutions. Although efforts toward detribalization were at least in part effective, subsequent events indicated that such identifications were still socially, economically, and politically relevant.

Languages

More than nine-tenths of Yemenis speak some dialect of Arabic as their first language, and Modern Standard Arabic—the literary and cultural language of the broader Arab world—is taught in schools. There are several main dialects, but minor differences often occur within smaller geographic areas. The Arabic of the rural areas of the south is still heavily influenced by the ancient South Arabian languages. A dialect of Judeo-Arabic spoken by the Jewish community has fallen almost entirely out of use in Yemen. Hindi, Somali, and several African languages are spoken in pockets. Several ancient Semitic dialects, including Bathari, Mehri, and Socotri (Soqotri), remain in a chiefly oral capacity. Those languages have tended to recede as literacy in Arabic has become more common.

Religion

Throughout society, the broadest distinctions between population groups are based not on ethnicity but on religious affiliation. Islam is the state religion, and the Sunni branch of Islam, represented by the Shāfiʿī school, predominates. The Shīʿite minority comprises consists of the Zaydī school, which has long been politically dominant in the mountainous highlands of the north, and the Ismāʿīlīs, now a relatively small group found in the Haraz region of northern Yemen and in Jabal Manakhah, the mountainous area west of Sanaa. The non-Muslim community is very small, consisting mostly of foreign visitors and workers. All are free to worship as they wish—including the Jewish community—but, as in most conservative Muslim countries, proselytizing of Muslims by non-Muslims is illegal.

Historically, Yemen has had its share of Islamic militants, particularly since the return of combatants who fought in the 1980s on the side of the mujahideen (Arabic: mujāhidūn, “those who engage in jihad”) in the Afghan War (1978–92).

Settlement patterns

Yemen is an overwhelmingly rural country, with about three-fourths of the people living in the countryside. With only a few exceptions, the rural population is distributed fairly evenly. The monsoon rainfall that causes the western slopes of the massif to be so well-dissected makes the area the most densely populated part of the country. Fertile soils are another regional asset. In varying concentrations, Yemenis inhabit nearly all the country’s geographic zones—from sea level to 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) and higher. (In fact, the intricate variety of subregions and microclimates produces an agricultural base of astonishing diversity.) The scarcity of farmland has greatly influenced rural settlement and construction patterns, as has the need for security. Villages tend to be small, and buildings are erected on ground that cannot be cultivated—frequently along cliffs and rock outcroppings. Homes often consist of several stories (as many as five or more), with the lower floors being made of hand-hewn stone. Upper stories, where the family resides, are usually made of mud brick, a superior insulator. These quarters also have many windows, providing ventilation in the heat of the summer. The location of the living quarters in these upper stories offers the capacity for storage in the lower stories, as well as an element of security.

Cities in Yemen follow patterns seen in other parts of the Arab world. Original construction consisted of a walled and fortified old city, in which the ornate multistory home was standard. The old city also contained shops, souks, schools, and mosques. In the modern period, urban areas began to sprawl outside the old city, and the wealthy began to build larger and more-ornate mansions and villas in nearby suburbs.

Demographic trends

In many respects, the most important contemporary demographic trend has been the emigration of large numbers of males between the ages of 15 and 45 for employment in other countries. The number of such emigrants has fluctuated because of political and economic volatility over the years. Until the last decade of the 20th century, there were more than one million Yemeni nationals employed abroad—chiefly in Saudi Arabia and the smaller Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region, as well as in Great Britain (in the industrial Midlands and in Wales), and in the United States (in industrial areas of the Northeast and Midwest and in the agricultural areas of California). The remittances of these emigrants played an important role in the balance of payments, in radically increasing the income of most Yemenis, and in funding many local development projects. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, however, drastically altered the balance of migrant labour. Yemen’s neutrality and failure to support a Saudi invitation extended to U.S. forces resulted in Saudi Arabia’s retraction of the special status granted to Yemeni workers, forcing as many as one million labourers to return to a newly unified Yemen that was ill-prepared to reabsorb them.

The population of Yemen continues to display characteristics typical of less-developed areas: high birth rate, high infant mortality rate, low levels of literacy, and the ill effects of poor hygiene, unsanitary water supplies, and inadequate public health service. Major health and education programs funded by foreign governments and by the United Nations have attempted to address both structural and programmatic deficiencies.